44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 18, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I think if we had more questions addressed in the way the member for Kings—Hants just did, this place would be much more productive.
He is right. We do not agree on this, and we have spoken about this in the House before. However, the reason we do not agree is not ideology; it is science. We are in a climate emergency. As a result, it is my view, and that of many advocates across the country, that this is not a time to be giving oil and gas companies more money to invest in unproven technologies. Rather, let us give it to homeowners and workers across the country to invest in the proven solutions that we already know. To put it another way, if the oil and gas industry thinks carbon capture is so great, it can invest in it itself. It should not take $8.6 billion of taxpayer money to do it.
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciated my colleague's speech. It was rigorous and well researched. We can see that he knows his constituents and his community. It is always moving to see members who have such a good understanding of the needs of their community.
My question is quite simple. The federal government is known to have dabbled in social programs in the past. For example, it funded a program for the homeless for a few years. Then it changed the rules of the game and disengaged.
Who got stuck with the full bill and less funding? It is the provinces.
Is my colleague not concerned that by becoming involved in a major program without the provinces' agreement, the federal government is meeting a need but that the provinces will not be able to cover the cost down the road and will have to pay the political price?
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Madam Speaker, I will quickly respond to my colleague from Salaberry—Suroît by saying that, in my opinion, it is important that all levels of government work together with all the tools at their disposal.
I believe that the federal government has a role to play in this country with respect to health care. That is why I support this bill.
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Madam Speaker, when I was elected in 2015, I committed to the constituents of the riding of Waterloo that I would listen to the diversity of their voices and represent them in this place.
Tonight, we are here until midnight to debate Bill C-31, an act respecting cost of living relief measures related to dental care and rental housing, as it became the only way to bring it to a vote. I hear from many constituents, and it is important that I rise and share what this legislation would do.
This legislation would enact the dental benefit act. Dental care is essential to overall health, yet in Canada, one-third of the population cannot afford it. Our support of the development of a national dental care program is part of our government's commitment to improving and strengthening Canada's publicly funded health care system. Also, this legislation would enact the rental housing benefit act, which would provide a one-time $500 payment to eligible renters. This benefit would provide a one-time Canada housing benefit top-up payment of $500 to 1.8 million renters who are struggling with the cost of housing.
I will focus my comments on what our government is doing to help Canadians and constituents within the riding of Waterloo. The steps we are taking are in direct response to what we have been hearing from Canadians.
In Waterloo, I hear from constituents who have shared that it is becoming increasingly challenging to find a safe and affordable place to call home. We know that the high cost of living is making affordable housing even less attainable for far too many Canadians, particularly renters in communities across the country, including in the riding of Waterloo.
I hear from constituents who are receiving some much-needed relief through benefits that our government has advanced. I have two examples: first, the tax-free Canada child benefit, which is helping families with children who need it most; second, the Canada housing benefit, which is co-funded between the federal and provincial or territorial governments and is delivered by the provinces and territories. To make this happen, our government worked with provinces and territories to create 13 Canada housing benefit initiatives, one for each jurisdiction, which are based on local needs and priorities.
Our government firmly believes that Canadians deserve a safe and affordable place to call home, and that is why we are making historic investments to rapidly create more affordable housing for communities through our $72-billion national housing strategy.
The national housing strategy is having a direct benefit in the region of Waterloo. Last year, our government announced an investment of $8.2 million for the rapid housing initiative. This investment, and a partnership between the YWCA, the City of Kitchener and the region of Waterloo, is designed to support women experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, homelessness. This year, 41 women each got an apartment in this newly built complex home. Listening to local needs, this investment is part of the YWCA's supportive housing program and includes mental health and addiction supports onsite.
This year, our government announced investments of $7.1 million for two more projects in the region of Waterloo. The first project, managed by the KW Urban Native Wigwam Project, will see 30 units created for indigenous people, and 16 will be for indigenous women and their children. The second building will be administered by OneRoof Youth Services and will see the creation of 44 supportive housing units, including 25 units for homeless people, 15 units for people with mental health or substance use issues and four units for indigenous peoples.
This year, the Government of Canada also announced an investment of $15 million in an affordable housing project geared towards low-income tenants and other vulnerable residents, including those with mental health challenges or physical disabilities and members of the indigenous communities.
There are many other examples I would like to share, as it is too often that we do not share the benefits and outcomes of the investments that our government is making.
I have met with constituents, and these people have shared what having a safe and affordable place to call home means to them. They shared how having a home allows them to better contribute and live authentic, meaningful lives. They shared that they appreciate the investments that are coming from the Government of Canada, and I admire how they continue to advocate to ensure we build more units. They continue to advocate for our government to do more because we all believe that every Canadian deserves a safe and affordable place to call home.
The legislation we are debating today includes a new one-time tax-free $500 federal benefit for eligible Canadian renters that is 100% federally funded. This one-time top-up would not reduce other federal income-based benefits, including the Canada workers benefit, the tax-free Canada child benefit, the goods and services tax credit and the guaranteed income supplement.
An estimated 1.8 million low-income renters, including students who are struggling with the cost of housing, would be eligible for this new support. This payment would be launched by the end of the year, pending parliamentary approval and royal assent of this legislation, and that is why I call on all colleagues to see swift passage of this legislation.
It is okay for members to disagree. Members of Parliament are elected to represent their constituents, and rest assured, I hear from a diversity of perspectives. I believe we should all stand in our place and vote.
It is clear that I will be supporting this legislation, as a top-up is part of our government's plan to make housing more affordable for Canadians. Our plan also includes measures to put Canada on the path to doubling housing construction over the next decade, to help Canadians save for and buy their first home, and to ban foreign ownership and curb speculation as they both make housing more expensive for Canadians.
We know Canadians are feeling the rising cost of living. We in this House can do something about it. We have been hearing from many people who are participating in this debate. There is definitely at least one party that has a challenge with the government working with other parties to be able to deliver better outcomes for Canadians.
When I was running for office and knocking on doors, Canadians said they expect us in this House to work together to deliver for them. It is not about partisan politics. This is the House of Commons, where we represent the diversity of perspectives we are elected to represent.
There are people in the riding of Waterloo who may choose not to vote for me, but what they have to say matters to me. I, as their member of Parliament, as their elected representative, find it important and necessary to listen to the diversity of their perspectives. That is what debate is all about. My role as a member of Parliament is to represent them here.
I also hear that Canadians want us to work across different levels of government. It is true different levels of government have different jurisdictions and different responsibilities. However, we have demonstrated time and time again that with the federal government being a partner and working with the provinces and territories, we actually can do more to help the constituents we are elected to represent. I will not stop doing that.
This legislation has had a good debate, and it is really clear where all the parties stand. It is important we bring this to a vote. It will go to committee, and hopefully it will come back quickly so we can send it to the Senate for it to do its important work to ensure this benefit gets into the pockets of Canadians who are struggling. We talk about affordability all the time. We in this House can do something about it.
I have appreciated the opportunity to speak to this legislation tonight. It is important we not only talk about what more we need to do but also represent and reflect upon the actions we have taken and their outcomes. When I hear from people who now have a safe and affordable place to call home and I see the satisfaction they are feeling, I want to see more people in that spot. I will do whatever I can to represent their voices and to ensure every Canadian has a safe and affordable place to call home.
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Madam Speaker, this bill is going to spend another $10 billion. The government's national debt is already over a trillion dollars. The latest update shows consumer debt is at $2.24 trillion, which is a 16% increase from the prepandemic levels with about a 10% increase year over year from the second quarter of last year.
We are talking about the cost of living relief, but I am wondering how adding another $10 billion to a program the provincial governments are not necessarily asking for is going to help. They are looking for other health care transfers and spending.
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Madam Speaker, the member's question clearly shows Canadians the approach of our government under the leadership of the Prime Minister and the approach of the official opposition.
When our government introduced legislation and lowered taxes on middle-class Canadians by increasing them on the wealthiest 1% of Canadians, the Conservatives vote against it. It is very clear who the Conservatives will continue advocating for. What I know is in my community people are looking for a safe and affordable place to call home. People are speaking to me about affordability and the crunch they are facing. People are trying to make ends meet.
We hear the Conservatives talk about it, but they do not want to propose any meaningful solutions. Today we have an opportunity to actually advance another solution. It is not the be-all and end-all, but it is another thing to help Canadians through very tough times. It is unfortunate the Conservatives cannot see that.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague talked a lot about housing. She said that it is a challenge for her, that it is a problem in her riding, and that it is an important issue, and she is right about that.
Today, I was talking to someone who is very involved in the fight for new social housing in Quebec. This person is very involved with Quebeckers who are less fortunate and poorly housed. This person was pinning a lot of hope on the NDP-Liberal agreement. They thought that if the NDP had signed an agreement with the Liberals, then it must mean that something was going to be done about housing. They were expecting investments. When I told them about the $500 under the Canada housing benefit, they were devastated. They said that this was not the right thing to do and that new housing units need to be built. That is $500 being spent for nothing. Next year, we will have to start over. More housing needs to be built for the future. They were just devastated.
What does my colleague think about that?
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Madam Speaker, it is interesting, because I think there are members within the opposition who are not understanding that this is another investment in Canadians. We have a $72-billion national housing strategy, which is actually building units in communities across the country.
Often, we hear the Bloc saying that housing should be delivered through the provinces, but it does not want to believe in partnerships. The federal government has actually re-entered the housing space. Part of why we were not able to be proactive with regard to the issues we are facing is that certain people do not believe we can do more and work better together.
The federal government will be a partner with provinces and territories. The federal government will work with regions and municipalities. The federal government will be there to support Canadians, because we believe that every Canadian deserves a safe and affordable place to call home.
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Uqaqtittiji, while the New Democrats welcome this benefit, more short- and long-term solutions are needed to address the housing crisis. I have a constituent in Whale Cove. He is the mayor, Percy Kabloona, who lives in a social housing unit that has not been renovated in five years. His house has split in half, and they use duct tape to keep the wind from coming in. I know that a lot more investments are needed.
Will the government invest in building sufficient units of social or co-op housing, with the necessary subsidies to meet the needs of those in core need?
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Madam Speaker, the stories the hon. member is sharing, we are hearing. I will tell her that the federal government is committed to doing whatever it can.
Today, we are able to see this legislation advance because of a partnership between two partners, recognizing that outcomes matter and that we can work better together in this place.
I hope the member recognizes that the federal government is here to work with members of all parties, as long as we deliver better outcomes for Canadians. I will continue fighting for the constituents of the riding of Waterloo. I am confident that the member will—
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- Oct/18/22 11:22:03 p.m.
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I am sorry. We are running out of time.
Resuming debate, the hon. member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake.
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Madam Speaker, what we are here to talk about late into the evening tonight is a huge inflationary bill. It is a bill that is adding tons of government spending, and I have some serious concerns about it.
One of the spaces where I have some real concern is over the fact that the delivery of health care is the purview and the jurisdiction of provinces. I have heard, many times over, members opposite say that the federal government has a space here because it has the power of spending. That is absolutely accurate: The federal government has the power of spending, effectively, in any space it wants, but the question is whether this is the best way to be spending this money.
My space on this is a serious question, and I have not heard answers from the government. Instead of it being the member for Kingston and the Islands getting up and trying to do a “gotcha” question, I would love to hear answers, perhaps from the Minister of Health, as to what work happened with provincial and territorial governments to see what programs they had in place, so that we looked at best practices and took the best programs that existed in provinces and territories across the country and tried to build on those, rather than create an “Ottawa knows best” scheme. This is all this is.
This is not a dental program. This is not dental insurance. Members from the NDP keep saying that we are voting against this, and that members in the House have dental care. We actually have a dental insurance program, a private insurance program, like many Canadians have. We have a dental insurance program.
This is not a dental insurance program that the government is creating. That would be a dental program. What we would actually be getting is a convoluted program that would deliver money through a CRA application based on income, which would not take into account what I think are important factors, such as how many children are in the family. If we had consulted with provinces and territories, we might have found that provinces and territories take into account some of these things, whether it is a single-parent or a dual-parent family, or how many children there are in the family, some of these pieces. It is critically important.
Dental care does not cost the same in rural Alberta as it costs in downtown Toronto or in rural Nova Scotia. Dental care varies widely even in my own community. If I call dentists, trying to figure out the costs of a dental cleaning, it could vary widely, just in my own community. I think this highlights one of the issues with this program. It puts a lot of weight without actually having the program to support and make sure the children who need this the most are getting it.
We have heard many times over through these debates that 70% of kids across the country have access to some form of dental care through provincial programs that already exist. That means 30% of children do not have access. I am curious as to whether the government did any research to see exactly what that 30% of kids looks like, and how we could support that 30% rather than just make a program that is “one size fits all”, which is the easiest to deliver but does not necessarily put the resources where they are most needed.
Frankly, Canadians are struggling right now: they are struggling to pay their bills at the end of each month; they are struggling to be able to afford to live, and while this would help in the short term, it would not cover the dental costs for a lot of kids who are struggling right now. This might cover a piece or part of the program.
Have we looked into whether provincial governments that currently have programs in place might pull their programs back because the federal government would have this program in place, therefore costing the federal government even more in the long term? This is part of the problem of not working with the provinces and territories and fixing the health transfer.
We have seen all the territorial and provincial leaders sit down and come together to say they want to see higher health transfers. What we have not seen from the Liberal government is meaningful work to get to that solution, meaningful work to build a dental plan. This is a payment scheme at best. This is not actually a dental program.
This is what happens when the members of the NDP-Liberal coalition realize that they effectively have a gun or a guillotine held to their heads so that if they do not deliver on these promises by a certain date, we will be triggered into an election. They came up with a fast solution. I would argue that we need to not be looking at fast solutions. We need to be looking at the best solutions for Canadians. I do not believe that this gets there.
The fact is that this is an omnibus bill. It brings together dental and rental benefits. It is effectively two different departments with two different ministers, the Minister of Housing and the Minister of Health, but it is going to the health committee. This is a health bill, even though it talks about a rental benefit. I am not sure how a rental benefit and housing relate to the portfolio of health, but that was how it was decided. Those are some of the decisions that must be made with an omnibus bill, like which minister takes the lead.
I find it awfully rich. When the Conservatives were in power, the members opposite used to complain about the fact that there were omnibus bills and closure motions, yet the second the government came into power, it had no problem doing the exact same thing. It was a simple thing to complain as the opposition, but it was not an ideological space that they were in where they truly were in disagreement with us. They just did not like it being used against them.
I think it is sad that we are sitting here at 11:30 at night discussing a critically important bill that is going to add $10 billion of spending at a time when we already have out-of-control inflation. We already have people who are routinely going to food banks to provide food for their children. Not having healthy food has to be a contributing factor to kids' dental health.
I can only imagine that this is a serious problem, but this is something that the government could have worked on. It could have put actual effort in to create a real program, working with provinces and territories to see which jurisdictions do it best and which ones are doing it poorly. I know in my home province of Alberta we have a dental care program that covers kids up to 18, including certain kids up to 19 as long as they are still in high school. I know that the thresholds are a little bit lower, in terms of the income thresholds, but they do have some qualifications in there for when there are multiple children or if it is a single parent. It even goes as far as adding to the income for the threshold based on how many kids over four children meet the age. I think that is an important qualifier.
I am not here to say that Alberta's program is the be-all and end-all. In fact, I do not know what all the programs look like. I know that the member for Kingston and the Islands really has a problem with the Ontario program and does not think it is sufficient.
What I would love to see would be for the health committee to be tasked with studying what the dental programs are across the provinces and territories and where we could find the optimal solution. That is something that I think has been completely missed in this omnibus bill, this bill that has been set with such strict timelines that we might not even have a real opportunity to have witnesses at committee because of how soon the government is forcing us to go to clause-by-clause.
Frankly, that concerns me. I think that Canadians expect that important pieces of legislation with this level of spending would have extremely high diligence, expertise and hear from witnesses, but not by using stalling techniques or filibustering. Legitimately, we should have more than a few hours to hear from witnesses on a bill that adds $10 billion of spending. I think that is part of the issue. The government is so quick to ram it down our throats and then say that we are stalling the bill.
The actual fact is that I would love to work with all members of the House. I do not think I am speaking out of turn by saying that most members from the Conservative side would like to work with the government, but what we see is this costly coalition continuously ramming its way through Parliament and disrespecting the fact that it is a minority Parliament.
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Madam Speaker, this question has been asked of a number of Conservatives this evening, all of whom have conveniently sidestepped it. I would like to ask this member the same question that has been asked and see if she can provide an answer or if she will sidestep it as all the others have done.
Why are Conservatives completely content with members of Parliament receiving dental care—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: They are heckling me. They are heckling me because they know where I am going with this. I would like to—
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- Oct/18/22 11:32:36 p.m.
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Order. I know the hon. member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake is able to answer this, as I have just heard her speech. I would ask members to hold on and allow the question to be asked so the hon. member can respond.
The hon. parliamentary secretary.
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Madam Speaker, Conservatives know where I am going with this, so they are heckling me to drown me out because they do not want to hear the question.
An hon member: Oh, oh!
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Madam Speaker, they are doing it again.
Why is it that members of Parliament should enjoy the luxury of having dental care, while they are not willing to extend the same luxury to some of the most vulnerable people in our communities?
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Madam Speaker, that is awfully rich coming from the member opposite, and if he had been here to listen to my speech, and intently listen, he would have heard that I addressed this in my remarks.
Frankly, what members of Parliament receive in terms of dental care is a dental insurance program. This is simply a spending scheme. It is not the same. Please do not misconstrue what this bill would do.
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Madam Speaker, I know the Alberta program she is talking about. I have, unfortunately, had to use that program. The Conservatives are upset with the fact that we are going to be delivering care to over 500,000 children.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Blake Desjarlais: Madam Speaker, they are heckling right now. That is how badly they want to block this legislation and how badly they do not want those children to get that support. The Conservatives do not want that to happen.
I was raised 20 kilometres south of the member's riding. I had to enlist in that program and did not get the care I needed from that program. That is why this program is needed. Why will she not agree?
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Madam Speaker, again, if the member had listened to the speech that I delivered, I addressed the fact that I was not sure which program across this country was the best at delivering, but I do know that this is not a program to provide dental care. This is a payment scheme. This is not going to solve the problem long term. This is a band-aid.
Frankly, I want support for the 30% of kids in this country who do not have dental care, but this is not going to solve the problem to make sure that the kids who need it the most are getting it. This is only a band-aid solution so the Liberal government can tell its costly coalition it succeeded.
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Madam Speaker, I listened to the member's speech quite carefully, and I would ask the member if she would care to expand on one of the points she made, which is the cynicism with which this bill came about.
There is this coalition where one coalition partner put a gun to the other coalition partner's head and said it must give it a dental program. The government puts together this short-term payment band-aid, calls it a dental program, and the other coalition partner pretends that it is a dental program and cheers the government on for it.
Would the member care to comment on the cynicism around this bill?
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the amazing work he does for the constituents of Calgary Rocky Ridge and all of northwest Calgary. He is one of the hardest-working members of Parliament in northwest Calgary, if not the hardest-working member.
One of the things the member highlights that is critically important is that this is just a spending scheme. This is not a program. This is simply words to check a box. This is not the solution.
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